+- Civil Engineering Association (https://forum.civilea.com)
+-- Forum: Forum Discussion (https://forum.civilea.com/forum-23.html)
+--- Forum: FAQs, Q&A, comments (https://forum.civilea.com/forum-26.html)
+--- Thread: Technical reports in which section should be placed? (/thread-20840.html)
Technical reports in which section should be placed? - datagap - 01-03-2011
Dear All,
Each time I'm posting a technical report, I'm hesitating in which section to place it. The technical reports are not exactly books, nor codes, nor papers. But each of these sections contains of them. Recently, two similar reports (the one was mine) were placed in different sections. It was confusing. So I'm asking. Which is the most appropriate place for them?
Maybe the books' section, because it would be the most easily for people, who are interested in the subject, to find them. But if this is a reason to place TRs concerning concrete in the relevant book section, why don't to post papers on concrete in the same book section? So, I usually place the reports in the journal&paper's section, because it may contain everything, except books, codes and sofware.
But what is your opinion?
Thank you in advance.
Best wishes for the New Year!
P.S.
Similar problem I also see with proceedings of conferences. I would search for them in the journals&papers' section, but in fact they can be found in the books' section.
RE: Technical reports in which section should be placed? - concreteok - 01-03-2011
Post it in either book or code section. It's more of a book than a code to me. However some TR like those from Concrete Society, have high 'authorities', they can be reckoned as 'code'. I admit we do not have proper 'way' now but you can suggest, and the forum team can work on it.
RE: Technical reports in which section should be placed? - datagap - 01-03-2011
Dear concreteok,
Thank you for the answer.
I think that it would be fine to have a proper way for posting TRs (and other kind of document too), so that related documents to be kept together and to be clear where exactly can be found. You'll say that there is a search engine. But simetimes it makes mistakes. If it can't find the document that I'm searching for, I'd search manually (but where?). Moreover, we may know the kind of the document that we are serching for, but not the axact title, ISBN, etc. (This is not a hypothesis, it has happened to me.) And when I say 'I' and 'me' here, you may understand 'many' , or at least 'some other members'. This was about the necessity of finding the proper place for documents. (I also see necessity to define any rules for tittles of the threads. I have such rules for files in my computers and the rules work. But this is another topic.)
About the suggestion. As I said, I hesitate. At that time I can only discuss. The thing that I'm confident of, is that in codes' section should be placed only obligatory documents on national and international level - codes, standards, regulations (ordinances). We have plenty of them. No TRs, books, manuals, etc. should take place there. May be only interpretative documents, especially such issued by the organization that has developed the relevent code. But even in this case, the codes will predominate and it would be hard to find the other document. This is my opinion.
About the book section I'm going to write later. I'm at work now and don't have much time to write here.
Thank you again.
Best regards
RE: Technical reports in which section should be placed? - datagap - 01-03-2011
In Wikipedia I found an article that can help, I think. This article categorizes scientific literature and defines the types of scientific publications.
The categorization is as follows:
- "Scientific research on original work initially published in scientific journals is called primary literature. Patents and technical reports, for minor research results and engineering and design work ... can also be considered primary literature"
- "Secondary sources include articles in review journals (which provide a synthesis of research articles on a topic to highlight advances and new lines of research), and books for large projects, broad arguments, or compilations of articles"
- "Tertiary sources might include encyclopedias and similar works intended for broad public consumption"
In the context of this thread, I think that primary sources should be placed in the section 'Magazine, Journals, Papers and Presentations'. Only secondary and tertiary sources should stay in 'book' section. Then the proper place in our forum for the different types of publications as they are defined in Wikipedia, will be:
1. Scientific articles published in scientific journals - Magazine, Journals, Papers and Presentations
2. Patents specialized for science and technology - Magazine, Journals, Papers and Presentations
3. Books wholly written by one or a small number of co-authors - Appropriate books' section, depending on the subject
4. Books, where each chapter is the responsibility of a different author or set of authors, though the editor may take some responsibility for ensuring consistency of style and content - Appropriate books' section, depending on the subject
5. Presentations at academic conferences, especially those organized by learned societies - Appropriate books' section, depending on the subject
6. Government reports such as a forensic investigation conducted by a government agency such as the NTSB (I can't fully understand this. The result of such investigation is technical report, isn't it?)- Magazine, Journals, Papers and Presentations ???
7. Scientific publications on the World Wide Web (excluding e-books) - Magazine, Journals, Papers and Presentations
8. Books, technical reports, pamphlets, and working papers issued by individual researchers or research organizations on their own initiative; these are sometimes organized into a series - Magazine, Journals, Papers and Presentations
So, according to this classification technical reports go to section 'Magazine, Journals, Papers and Presentations.'
Are you agree to this?